


Memories

by Littlecherryblossom26



Category: 1917 (Movie 2019)
Genre: Friendship/Love, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Regret, Suffering, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-21
Updated: 2020-01-21
Packaged: 2021-02-27 06:41:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,332
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22352764
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Littlecherryblossom26/pseuds/Littlecherryblossom26
Summary: A short fic in which Will remembers the past to try to forget about the present time. However, he ends up being snapped back to reality...
Relationships: Lance Corporal Blake/Lance Corporal Schofield, Tom Blake/Will Schofield, William Schofield/Joseph Blake
Comments: 7
Kudos: 75





	Memories

**Author's Note:**

> Hey! So I've finally managed to find a good idea and write something much longer!! So I really hope that you'll enjoy it!! :) 
> 
> Just don't forget to comment to let me know what you think if you like it!!! I really love reading other people's comments! :) 
> 
> Thanks!

_The scene takes place at the very end of the movie._

  
Will was still leaning under the tree by the time the sun had set. He simply didn't feel like moving and going back to his own regiment just yet. Not after all he had gone through to get there. He was just feeling empty, because of the endless void the death of his friend had left.

  
He could just feel that his own life was pointless now. 

  
He had carried out their mission well, and saved 1,600 men. So at least Tom could rest in peace.   
But he still had the letter destined for Tom’s and Joseph’s mother to write.   
He might have just as well let Joseph write it, but Tom had asked _him_ to write it, and not his own brother. So he couldn’t not accomplish his best friend’s last will.   
Anyway, he preferred to wait before starting to write the letter. He already knew more or less what he would put in it, but he felt that he wouldn’t be able to write it without breaking down. 

He watched the sky as it was getting darker and darker with a vacant look. He could hear some noises in the distance, but they were indistinct.   
He closed his eyes slowly before he started dozing off. He just wanted to forget where he was and what had happened.   
This place and this particular tree reminded him so much of the place where he had been with Tom before the sergeant had come to fetch the younger boy, drifting off peacefully together. 

Pretty soon, as he was unable to stop thinking even with his eyes closed, he began remembering the first time he had met Tom, around two years earlier. In the trenches. He had looked so young, too young to even be there. Will had assumed he had been hardly twenty at the time, if not younger. 

_“Hi, I’m Lance Corporal Blake,” he introduced himself with a small but genuine smile as he extended his hand._

_Will looked at it before looking up to stare into the other’s eyes. They were blue, just like his, and they even looked bluer than his._

_He smiled back at him with the same kind of smile before shaking his hand._

_“Nice to meet you. I’m Lance Corporal Schofield. But you can call me William, I mean Will.”_

_They remained both still for a few seconds, their hands still into each other’s as they were too busy looking at each other to pay any attention to them. Anyway, they quickly let go as they realized they had stopped shaking them._

_Tom gave Will a kind of small awkward smile, but then shrugged it off (what had just happened)._

_“Then you can call me Tom.”_

_Will just nodded silently, never looking away from the younger male._

_He had already managed to make some new friends ever since he had got there, but generally he hadn’t kept them for too long…_

_“So where are you from?” Tom asked him._

_“London. And you?”_

_“I’m from Essex, from a town you’ve probably never heard of,” he replied with a small playful smile._

_Will nodded before speaking up again._

_“It must be nice, nicer than London.”_

_“I don’t know if it’s nicer than the big City, but it’s completely lost.”_

_But for Will, being lost didn’t mean it couldn’t be nice. The countryside had a charming side too. It was peaceful and had its own kind of beauty with its natural landscapes. It wasn’t full of buildings and people unlike the big cities._

_“It can’t be worse than where we are right now,” he said._

_As he kept staring at him, Tom let out a small laugh which sounded somehow rueful._

_“Definitely not.”_

They had become pretty close as time had passed, almost like two brothers. They had learnt to rely on each other and had always had each other’s back. 

But the war had ended up separating them. 

_“I just hope this bloody war will be over soon.”_

Will suddenly had another flashback which had happened later after their first meeting, and in which Tom had been the one to say that. 

_“You can never know. It can last much longer than what we think. The Germans seem to be determined not to lose it.”_

That’s what he had replied, with a concerned look plastered on his face.

He then remembered the time when he had almost died not so long earlier, hadn’t Tom been there to save him. 

He could picture himself unconscious, being shaken by Blake after the latter had managed to bring him out of the rubble. 

“Will! Will!”

But the more the younger lad kept on shouting, the more his voice was becoming distant, turning into a sort of echo. 

“Will!”

Said man opened his eyes in a flash, somehow looking panicked. 

He took a quick look at his surroundings and realised he was still leaning against the same tree. He had no idea for how long he had been snoozing, but it was still dark. 

He looked ahead of him to see a man crouching close to him. He had a flashlight in one hand, providing a small source of light so they could see each other. 

His eyes were blue, as blue as Tom, if not a bit bluer. Will narrowed his eyes before he examined the other man’s face carefully. He ended up recognising him. It was Tom’s elder brother.   
  
Will seemed to be surprised to see him there at such an hour. Joe gave him a tiny and rueful smile. 

“After everything you went through, you should have a bite to eat and something to drink,” Joe told him in a low voice. “You have a long way that awaits you to go back to your regiment.”

Joe had some food in his other hand, even if that wasn’t much, and he also had a flask of water with him. 

But Will wasn’t hungry. Nor was he thirsty. 

“Thank you,” he answered softly. “But I don’t really feel like eating or drinking right now.”

Joe stared at him intently. 

“Listen,” he said after a small moment of silence. “I know how you’re feeling. But making yourself starve and die of thirst won’t make things any better,” he said in a serious tone.

Will just kept staring at him in silence. 

“It won’t bring him back,” Joe then added. 

They both remained silent, Joe seemingly waiting for Will to react. 

“I know,” Will ended up saying, breaking the silence. 

“Then, try to eat a little bit.”

He handed the small quantity of food he had. But Will feared he might have vomited it if he ate it. However, he still took it, fearing he might have offended Joe. 

He used his right hand to both eat and hold the food in the palm of it since the other one was wounded, which Joe ended up noticing at some point as he was observing him eating.

“May I have a look at your left hand?” Joe asked him.

Will seemed to be surprised by his request, and he didn’t even know how he should react.

“It’s... It’s nothing serious...” he replied after having gulping down the last bite of food he had in his mouth.

But Joe didn’t seem to be convinced by his answer. 

“Please,” Joe insisted, but he didn’t sound stern at all. 

Will didn’t really want his wound to be examined. Yet, strangely, he felt that he couldn’t deny Tom’s brother anything. 

So he just extended his hand so the other could take it to have a closer look at it. 

They fell silent again as Joe removed his dressing, having put down the torch on the fresh grass. 

“Your wound needs to be disinfected and dressed again with a clean bandage,” he stated earnestly after having examined the wound carefully. “Why didn’t you go to the first aid station immediately after you arrived here?”

There seemed to be a short moment of hesitation. 

“Because I deemed it wasn’t urgent. There were other soldiers that were badly injured, unlike me, and that needed to be treated without waiting. This is only a shallow wound,” Will said in a solemn voice.   
But once again, Joe didn’t seem to be convinced by his argument. 

“A wound is a wound. No matter how shallow it looks. And it always has to be taken seriously. You can very easily catch an infection with that type of wound.”

Will looked down at his lap in silence. It was almost as if he were being scolded, even though Joe didn’t mean it to sound that way. He was just a bit worried for him.

Anyway, Will didn’t seem to mind too much about catching an infection or not. He didn’t seem to care about dying now. Life really was just meaningless to him. It was as simple as that. 

“You may not realise it, but an infection is just as dangerous as a shrapnel or any other similar wound, actually even more,” Joe said, still earnestly. 

But there wasn’t any reaction on Will’s part. 

Joe kept staring at him without ever looking away as Will was still looking down. 

This lasted for a little while.

He held back a sigh. 

“I think that maybe you should also see a doctor to treat your… Well, you see…”

He was speaking about trauma. The trauma Will was experiencing after losing his friend. But for some reason, he didn’t want to say it aloud. 

And Will wasn’t stupid, far from it. He perfectly understood what he was talking about. 

He glanced at Joe with a blank look. 

“No, thanks,” he responded in a very low voice. “I’ll be just fine.”

It’s not as if any doctor could help him get over Tom’s death anyway… 

There was another short moment of silence. 

“Just come with me,” Joe said just above a whisper. 

Will glanced at him again. 

“Listen, I really appreciate what you’re doing to help me, but I’d rather stay here if you don’t mind,” he said politely. 

Joe hadn’t let go of his hand. And he still thought his wound needed to be taken care of as soon as possible. 

“Listen, Will,” he said gravely. “You have a family that loves you, don’t you? So I’m sure they would hate the thought of anything happening to you.”

Said man still looked distraught and almost lost. He seemed to be there without really being there. 

“A war is a war,” he ended up saying emotionlessly after a few moments of silence. “They’ll have to accept it if anything happens to me.”

Joe knew he had a point, but still…

“But what I’m sure about too is that Tom wouldn’t like it to see you act like that."

This time, Will looked up to stare into his blue eyes once again, the look on his face not that blank anymore.  
  
“So just keep on living for him, okay?” Joe added as he finally let go of his hand to take a hold of his shoulders. 

Not long after he said that, Will could feel tears well up in his eyes. He could also feel the lump that had just formed in his throat getting bigger and bigger. 

He opened his mouth to say something but immediately closed it after opening it. 

He briefly looked away before staring back at Joe. 

“But why did it have to be him?” He finally said, trying to keep his voice as steady as possible, which was extremely hard. “Why couldn’t I die instead? He should have been the one to get to you and deliver the message to Colonel MacKenzie.” His voice was quavering as he said that. 

Will just couldn't even pronounce his name anymore.

Joe was left speechless for a little while because of his words. The look on his face was a mix of sorrow and sympathy. 

“Stop torturing yourself with that kind of thoughts,” he ended up saying, trying to remain composed. “It’s just pointless to think that way. Yes, life is cruel and unfair, but we have to deal with it and move on. But moving on doesn’t mean we have to forget. Tom will always be remembered. He will always live through you, me, and my mother.”

His mini speech left Will speechless. He now seemed to be pondering over his words for a few instants. 

“He will be waiting for you on the other side, but don’t join him too soon,” Joe added breaking the silence. 

Will still didn’t say anything. 

“Anyway, I’m sure he’s not the only friend you’ve lost, is he? So you’ll end up getting over his death too, even if it takes time,” Joe then said, trying to comfort him. 

Will was fighting back the tears as hard as he could by now. 

“No… You don’t understand…” he trailed off in a weak and shaky voice. “He wasn’t just a mere friend… He was much more than that…”

Joe looked taken aback by what he had just said, but still had a sympathetic look on his face. 

He simply decided to do something unusual, hoping it would work. 

He brought himself closer to Will before he managed to wrap his arms around him to pull him into a tight embrace. 

Will had certainly not expected him to do that, but even though he wouldn’t admit it, he was glad he did. He relished in the warmth of this physical contact. He definitely needed some body heat. He slightly shifted his position so it could be more suitable for hugging. 

Without even realising it, tears were soon rolling down his cheeks. 

Joe could feel his ragged breathing. 

“Shhhh…. Everything will be alright,” he whispered softly. “Just pour it all out.”

They remained like that for a long while, silently and peacefully, enjoying each other’s warmth and the cool air of the night.

  
“What about we go and get this wound cleansed now?” 


End file.
